The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1887-04-16
GRAFTON BY DIR. ]. W. Herring
Or WESTMINSTER, Nh.

GRAFTON BY DIR. ]. W. Herring,
Or WESTMINSTER, Nh.
At the Semi Centennial Celebration of the Or
ganization of Carroll County.
At Westminster, Md, April IIth, 1887.
Mr.. President, Ladies and Gentlemen ::
The desire to commemorate important his
toric events, is common to all people, and
as an expression of this laudable disposition
it is most appropriate and fitting, that the
citizens of free and enlightened commu-
nifty, should pause in their pursuits, cease
from their occupations, and dedicate sea
son to reflection and review.
We act in the present, but we live largely
in the past. While we are, of necessity,
engaged with the busy scenes that are i'm
mediately about us we find our hearts con-
stantly responding to the echoes which
come to us from the days gone by, and a
recollection of hardships endured, difficult
ties overcome and triumphs achieved-these
90 to make up much of the sum total of
our present happiness.
The cords which bind us 10 our ancestral
homes, are frightened in their tender embrace,
as we linger amid the pleasures of family
"Reminiscences.
And our patriotism is excited and strength
ened and quickened, as we study the his
tory of our country and recall, with pride
and satisfaction, the heroic deeds of our
forefathers.
The occasion which brings us together
to-day, is well calculated to call forth these
finer feelings of our nature, and so, in re-
spouse to an invitation which found ready
answer, our people have come from their
various avocations; have left their farms,
their workshops, their stores and their pro-
LESSONS, to unite in celebrating the Semi
Centennial of our beloved and honored
| County.
The day marks an epoch in our history,
and is one in which we may justly, and of
right, give expression to the feelings of sat
isfaction with which we contemplate the
character and position of the county, in
which are our homes and our hearts.
Pride of home and pride of country, are
not to be regarded as indications of weak
ness or sentimentality, but rather to be
understood as synonyms Of true patriotism.
And the day is fttingly appointed, which
calls favored and happy people to stop,
and consider their heritage.
The ancient Jew, of that wonderful race,
whose national identity seeHls not at any
time to have been completely obscured,
wherever you found him, in the widest dis
pensions or under the bitterest prosecutions,
never forgot the home of his childhood or
the land of his fathers.
And the cry which came up from his
Babylonish captivity has not, among any
people, been surpassed for its expressions of
patriotic devotion.
We come to-day to revive the memories
Of the past, TO call back aud ffeshen the
reeolections of the old, to quicken the i'm
pulses of the young and to make real,
living and emphatic, the events which this
celebration is designed to impress.
Let us rejoice, then, as people grateful
for the past and hopeful for the future.
Coupled, however, with the feelings of
qualification with which we would felicitate
ourselves, and which are naturally prompted
by the circumstances of our gathering, there
| is tipge Of sadness, when We remember
how few remain, Of all who were actors in
the scenes of fifty years ago. Time, with
its onward step and steady march, has car
ried with it, into the great beyond, the
multitudes of those who rejoiced at the
county's birth.
And while il is true that there are many
representatives here of those who stood in
the busy scenes of that period, only here
and there do we fld one who bore the
heat and burden Of that day.
Its with much pleasure, however, that
we greet and welcome to-day, some of the
noble few, who coming from their homes,
both near and far, honor this occasion with
their presence. Men who were in the very
flush of their manhood life, when the county
was in its infancy who have travelled
with it, step by step, through Its infancy
and into the maturity of its strength who
have shared in all its experiences, and
taken part in all its public affairs, and who
are here to-day, to ming.c with this gathered
multitude, in rejoicing for the prosperity
which, under the blessing of God, has been
vouchsafed to us as a people, during the
fifty years of our history,
| We would make our most profound and
reyerent bow to their age and gray hairs
and to the record Of their public services
and private virtues, and pray that Time,
which has dealt so gently with them, may
still be kind and tender, and that when to
| them
"The summons comes to join
1 The innumerable caravan which moves
| To that mysterious realm where each shall take
| His chamber in the silent halls Of death,
| They 60 not like the quarry slave at night ,
scourged 10 his dungeon; but sustained and soothed
| BY an unfalterng trust approach the grave
/ Like one who wraps the drapeFy of his couch
| About him. and lies down 70 pleasant dreams,
Fifty years ago, long and anxious
struggle had just ended in the establish
ment Of our county.
Carroll, whose history has been so ap-
propriately sketched in our hearing to-day,
was added to Maryland's roll-call, and the
name chosen for the new county, in honor
of the illustrious "Carroll Of Carrollton, +"
was at once, pledge Of the public virtue
and patriotism Of her citizens.
Embracing territory rich in natural
resources, and with population aecns-
toned to the wise and beIedeent govern
mepts of the counties from which we were
separated, It was not unreasonable TO expect
for the new county a career of prosperity